Monthly Archives: February 2016

The idea of body cremation sounds familiar because you probably had people talk about it. Making plans for cremation may seem a little challenging if you do not have a single clue about how things work. Luckily, it is not such a complex process. All you need is the relevant information from funeral homes that offer cremation services. Funeral homes provide you with licensed officials who can shed some light regarding critical things that require compliance such as legal and procedural conditions for cremation. The following are ideas that will help you plan a successful cremation for your loved one.

Contacting funeral homes

There are probably a number of funeral homes where you live. You need to call several funeral homes to get an idea of the general price list that basically covers all items offered. Getting quotes from several funeral homes will make it easy for you to find the one that suits you best. You can compare prices, services and the like to be sure you are making the right choice.

Details of deceased

After making up your mind regarding a funeral home, you should take all the essential details of the deceased such as social security number to the funeral home. More often than not, there is a funeral arrangement platform that helps with cremation planning. The funeral arrangement conference uses these details to ensure that all the legal, procedural and State policies are complied with before any further action is taken.

Body transportation

If the body is not in a funeral home, you will have to move it from the site of the death to the funeral home. Funeral service providers usually provide their clients with secure and original certified copy of death certificate and make arrangements newspaper announcement. In addition, they also see to it that other necessary paper work is done. Therefore, you can be sure of quality cremation services in Cheshire CT when you make a call.

Final steps

The final stops involve getting a medical from a doctor that clearly states the cause of death. In the event there has been a post mortem examination, you may have to get a coroner’s certificate approving cremation. After acquiring all the relevant certificates, all you will have to do is sign cremation authorization document. Some funeral homes allow you to view body cremation while others do not. Therefore, if you want to look at body cremation, you can ask the funeral home if they allow body viewing during cremation.

Lastly, you need to get an urn where you will keep the cremation remains. There are various designs of urns. You can pick an option that you like most. When cremation is over, you will be given the cremation remains. There are a number of things that you can do with the cremation remains. You can put the cremation remains in an urn and store it in a mantel. You can also scatter the ashes in a national park, garden or even in the ocean. The other option is burying the ashes in a burial plot or putting them in a columbarium.

There are people who agree that ash is not the right word for referring to cremation remains. This is true to some extent because after cremation, what remains is actually afine gravel-like material that is grayish in color. There are series of steps that are involved in cremation of the body. Most modern crematories usually store bodies in cool rooms that are temperature-controlled. The bodies stay in this room pending approval for cremation. Prior to cremation, the signature of a coroner is required to ensure that no investigation is necessary because after the body is incinerated, it cannot be retrieved for inquiry purposes.

Body preparation

Body preparation involves removal of pacemakers because they explode when exposed to heat. Other things such as radioactive cancer seeds (for treatment purposes) usually injected or implanted in the body also have to be removed from the body. The body is placed into a casket material that is made of flammable product such as cardboard or plywood.

After the body has been properly put in the casket material, incineration follows. There are various way of incinerating the body. You can watch while the body is being incinerated from an incinerator window. In the case of Hindu culture, you are allowed to initiate cremation by pressing the incineration button.

Body cremation

Once the body is in the casket material, it is put in an incinerator that has been preheated to just about 590 degrees Celsius. The incinerator has mechanized doors, which have to be opened to allow the casket material to be slipped through for body cremation. The casket material accesses the primary cremation chamber by slipping briskly from a rack of metal pins that roll continuously. When the casket material is in place, the doors are closed and the bodyis subjected to a fierce column of flame that basically focuses on the torso. As the heat ignites the casket material, the body (composed of 70 % of water) dries up. The soft tissues start to tighten and burn until they eventually vaporize from the heat.

Body reaction to heat

With the time, the body skin loses colors and becomes waxy. As the heat rages on, the skin blisters and splits. At this point, the body muscles start to char as they flex and extend the limbs while tightening. The bones are actually the last part of the body to go down in flames. Too much exposure to heat calcifies the bones to a point of crumbling. The burning goes for several hours until all that is left of the body is ash.

On average, a human body that has received cremation services in Cheshire CT will be ready after 2-3 hours of incineration. In addition, it will produce an average of 4-10 pounds of ash after cremation. More often than not, the amount of ash produced after incineration largely depends on the bone structure of a person and not his or her weight. In essence, that is all that goes down in the incineration chamber when the body is being cremated.